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Women work without a break for their families, society, and friends all through the year. So, on IWD 2016, LEAD conducted their 3rd annual "Recognizing the Unrecognized", where women in our society who are rarely recognized but are responsible for important work were recognized for their contributions, such as cleaning railway stations, bus stands, picking household trash, selling vegetables etc. LEAD and LEADers believe that, without these women, our communities would come to a standstill.

The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow. To that purpose, the LEaders Accelerating Development (LEAD) Program of the Deshpande Foundation was born. LEAD develops innovative and entrepreneurial thinking within college students by exposing them to social issues, encouraging them to volunteer their time and effort into the community, and igniting their latent talent to come up with creative solutions. Through this unique platform provided by LEAD, students are gaining the skills and confidence needed to transform their visions into realities. Armed with guidance, exposure, networking opportunities, financial assistance, and encouragement from LEAD, students from throughout 75 colleges and 14 districts are unleashing their leadership potential to go on inspiring and improving those around them.

The 6th Yuva Summit, an international youth conference on leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship hosted by the Leaders Accelerating Development program, began in Hubballi on 6th February with Mr. Ravindranath Gumaste, Managing Director of Kirloskar Ferrous Industries Ltd., cutting the ceremonial ribbon that let the hundreds of attendees, including students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and honoured guests, into the event grounds.

On 24th January, 107 promising students from across Karnataka and neighbouring states descended upon the VTU campus in Belagavi to mark the kick-off of the 5th annual LEAD Prayana. These students, along with 32 beginning their journey on the same day in Nizamabad, were selected from a pool of almost 500 applicants. LEAD Prayana, which began in 2012 with just 63 students, is an annual leadership journey that takes almost 150 passionate students between the ages of 18-26 throughout India on a 14-day tour across Karnataka...

I am passionate about science, especially physics. My affair with Science started during my childhood and it deepened in my high school when I started participating in Science exhibitions with my models. During Pre University Education, I built the Levitation Train with few of my friends and grabbed prizes at several competitions. “Physics of the Impossible” by Michio Kaku was a book that exposed me further to the vastness of the science and motivated me to start a science group called “Blackbody Science Group (Which Absorbs All Wavelength of Intuitive Minds)”. This group engages in creating interest about science among government and physically disabled school children.

I'm Satya Phanindra Saibewar, and currently I'm working as an associate at Amazon Development Center, India for Amazon.com in the role of assisting the customers and business partners of the amazon from North America and Canada via emails.

First of all let me thank the Deshpande foundation, LEAD, Kakatiya Sandbox and all my mentors like Mr. Amrut patil, Mr. Raju Reddy, Mr. Phanindra Sama and many others, who helped me to reach the pinnacles in LEAD.

When I was asked to submit a My Story for LEAD, I really felt immense happiness for bringing me into the mainstream and for giving the opportunity to thank the Deshpande Foundation, LEAD, Kakatiya Sandbox, and all my mentors.

My childhood was comprised of lots of hurdles and learnings, including the loss of my late father, much loved and a courageous policeman, when I was 5 years old. Then my mother was everything for me and I was everything for her. From that day until now, she did everything for me.

It was in primary school that I realized the joy of learning, and became interested in understanding the world and listening to current event through the news under the mentoring of my mother. This love of learning and the support from my mother never weakened, and in my SSC, I was one of the toppers in my district, and was offered a free college education.

Even though the next years would be difficult as I went to college and my mother's health was struggling, my involvement with the Divine Swadhayaay transformed my life.

These all Divine thoughts impacted a lot on me, builded the utmost faith in me for God and helped me to stand strong in any tough situations. I feel very happy to say that the Swadhyaay Parivar has impacted millions of the lives irrespective of caste, creed and religion and among those millions, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also one.

I started pursuing my engineering graduation in the year of 2011 and passed out successfully in 2015.While engineering was never my thought, as from my childhood I was very interested towards the society and it's sufferings, I didn't know before that even I could solve the problems of society through technology.

Initially my enthusiasm and attentiveness was observed and recognized by one of our mathematics faculty at college, who was the mentor of my class and he promoted me as a class representative.

This enhanced the interpersonal skills and strengthened the roots of confidence in myself. It also helped me to start enhancing my leadership skills.

On a fine day, when I was in the second year of my engineering college, the HOD entered into our class and said there is a session in the seminar hall and we have to attend it. Most of us rather being excited, felt that this is also might be some kind of session where any of the private institute might visit to promote their business.

But It was completely different. There were the people from Deshpande Foundation LEAD after this session I felt like this is something which can help me to put forward the zeal in me to do something for the society.

From the first time I went there to LEAD I felt very inspired, but my energy and enthusiasm got boosted each time I met another LEAD staff or team member, and even more so when I visited Hubballi. I gained tons of positive energy and unleash my leadership potential to take the social initiatives and solving the problems of the people around.

My batch mates at LEAD were not only just my fellow students but today they all are my divine brothers and sisters, who look in to my personal life when I'm facing any problem and says that they are with me. Even they call me frequently for seeking assistance in some cases and I love to guide them, with whatever the knowledge I'm blessed with.

After volunteering for a Valedictory in 2013, I was inspired by the work of my friends and the recognition they received.

From then, I never looked back, and capitalized my weekends and the nonproductive time at my college where mass bunks by the students were very common and unfortunate. I would travel on the local bus to Nizamabad and build up my teammates from various colleges with my support and guidance.

My projects and leadership which I displayed helped me to evolve at the Best Leader 2015 which was never expected by them, till the moment my name was uttered from Ajay sir who was on the dais of the YUVA summit. Touching the foot of the HUMANITARIAN PERSON OF THE NATION and Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi Ji was an unforgettable moment of my life. A response email from Kailash Satyarthi Ji from my email one month after Yuva Summit, appreciating me, is a life time achievement for me for now.

Taking part in Lead talk 2015 and getting tremendous applauses for my efforts helped me to boost my self-motivation abilities to 100 more times, and being a part of Lead Prayana 2015 for a few days was an unforgettable time in my life.

Thanks a lot to God, my parents (especially my mother), my divine brothers of Swadhyaay, Dadaji, my beloved friends at college, and all those who helped me throughout my journey.

I'm thankful to God for blessing me with all these, especially the relation which I had with LEAD.